A COUPLE OF BRAVE WISCONSIN GIRLS.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2095, 22 January 1870, Page 2

A COUPLE OF BRAVE WISCONSIN GIRLS.

Id our rambles “up the Chippewa,” a few days ago, we chanced upon a husky, brown faced girl ploughing out a twenty acre cornfield. She was rigged in a snuff colored “ bloomer,” with straw hat and good honest number seven boots. There was no sham about her. She was evidently all girl, and working with a will. She had been in tiny field since early morning, taking long strides behind a spirited horse, with the line thrown across her shoulder, and both hands firmly at the plough. It was just “ good fun,” she said, to take care of twenty acres, and away she strode through the long rows —turning corners, kicking over so.ds, and never a thought of rest or “ whoa” till the dinner horn sounded across the field. On inquiry, we learned that our cornfield heroine was one of the two New Hampshire girls who migrated with theii parents to Eau Claire some dozen years ago. They had little means, but were of good working stock. They bargained for a quarter section of wild land, and set about making a farm. There were no boys in the family. The girls were young, bright, healthy, and fall of pluck and vigor. Their mother dressed them in bloomers, aud gave them their choice, indoors or out. From the start they took the place of boys ; they were not afraid of dust or sunshine ; they never complained ; they never tired out; they seldom missed a day from the fields through all the seasons, from the earliest spring to latest autumn. As they grew older, they grew tough and wiry, and were alike ready at handling teams, breaking in colts, building bridges, opening roads, fording creeks, clearing meadows, loading hay, bind' ing grain, or mounting a straw stack. In good seasons they cut eighty tons of hay and eighty acres of grain. In rainy seasons they had to bring out their hay by hand, carrying it on knee-deep, through sloughs and marshes. In winter they attended school and took care of sixty head of cattle, drawing hay from the swamps in the coldest weather. They hired no help except at harvesting. They did their own trading and marketing, and could never be outwitted by any of the store chaps at Eau Claire. The girls are now eighteen and twenty years of age, and have done more farm work than any two boys in the country. Their father, beginning with nothing, is now rich, with broad field and thousands of ready stamps, mostly achieved through the grit and energy of his daughters. During the present season the girls have “let up” a little on their out-door accomplishments, and are only cultivating twenty acres of corn for their own amusement. They have built them a spacious residence. They attend balls and parties, go a trouting, drive their own teams, and occasionally give the boys a chance to show their pluck and gallantry. Of course such girls are objects of excitement an din terest in then’ neighborhood. They are looked upon as “capital prizes,” and young fellows are ready to break their necks for them. They are now right in their freshest bloom, with thoughts of love and romance beginning to steal about the back of neck and brains ; and what may seem as strange, they are neither course nor masculine in appearance ; they are simply round, trim, sprightly, full-breasted girls, with resolution in their eye, and plenty of good souse in their heads. It may he interesting to female politicians to know that tlfese Chippewa valley girls never whine or declaim about their “ rights ”or “ position.” They saw rough work to bo done—work most needed in our Western country—and asking odds of nobody, they went in bravely on their muscle and did it, They have not cackled at conventions. They have never sat with Miss Anthony, or Lucy Stone Blackwell. They have fairly won a much higher seat among the queens ,of American industry.— Milwaukee Wisconsin